Allport rooted prejudice in irrational person-based antipathy, not political motives

Evidence

In his chapter, “Rejection of Out-Groups” (chapter 4), Allport addressed the problem of intergroup discrimination and violence. His treatment was framed by his seminal definition of prejudice as “an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization” that “may be felt or expressed… . toward a group … or toward an individual … member of that group” (Allport, 1954/1979, p. 9). In that view, discrimination and violence are the spontaneous expressions of prejudice, and the engine that drives prejudice is a person-based, irrational hostility. Fueled by categorical beliefs about social groups that are ignorant, parochial, and rigid, that hostility is discharged without restraint in verbal invectives, discriminatory behaviors, and physical violence. The bad news was that many individuals in privileged groups harbored a destructive hostility toward outgroups. The good news was that the hostility was innocent of political motivation, in both its genesis and expression. In a later chapter, Allport (p. 265) illustrated his thesis with a homily: “See that man over there? Yes. Well, I hate him. But you don’t know him. That’s why I hate him.” Intergroup hostility had no rational basis: it bubbled forth naively from ignorant and misguided individuals to be inflicted unilaterally and without artifice on subordinate victims. — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 639

Categorization

• DEFINE: Recounts Allport’s canonical prejudice definition anchoring the whole reassessment thread.
• XREF: Directly frames the claim the chapter will overturn; ties to the Allport reassessment vault thread.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 639